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The American Thyroid Association is the most prominent association for thyroid health professionals.
The Association needed to support thousands of members worldwide with limited staff resources. ATA also needed a web solution that would integrate with an internal database.
The American Thyroid Association chose MembaMe from Intertwine Systems, a web-based tool for online dues payments, provide personalized content and connect far-flung members.
The Association saw dramatically improved member satisfaction and reduced the cost and time spent on member support.
Thyroid doctors can be a tough crowd. Known within the medical community for their passionate and intellectual approach to treating thyroid-related conditions, like diabetes, thyroid cancer and menopause, these professionals expect nothing less than excellence from their professional membership organization.
The American Thyroid Association (ATA), formed in 1923, is America's most prominent organization for thyroid researchers and physicians. Their aim is to provide outstanding leadership in thyroidology by promoting excellence and innovation in clinical care, research, education, and public policy.
Of the many goals listed in the Association's mission statement - support of basic research, guidance for public policy and professional education - member support is not mentioned. But for the ATA's incoming Executive Director, Bobbi Smith, and her two full-time staff members, excellent member support was not only a goal, but a critical necessity.
The demands on the small team were extraordinary: support the public mission of the Association, coordinate far-flung meetings and seminars, manage the publication of two professional journals, and not least, keep the Association's thousands of worldwide members well-informed, well-connected and happy.
With her many years experience in managing public associations, Executive Director Smith knew technology would play a key role in the ATA's strategy, but first there were fires to extinguish. The ATA's back office was in disarray, with member information stored in a multitude of electronic databases and paper files. Phones were continually jammed with members who needed help with tasks as ordinary as paying member dues, and as complex as understanding clinical research guidelines.
Smith decided to take a two-pronged approach to solve the problems facing the Association:
To install the internal association management software, Smith chose a vendor that she knew well: Armstrong Enterprise Communications (AEC), which had successfully deployed a system called iMis for Smith's previous employer. She had been suitably impressed with that system's capabilities.
Smith also turned to a trusted partner to build ATA's new online member services site: Inter-twine Systems, Inc. (ISI). Intertwine Systems had created the Association's public website a few years earlier - a site that had earned the 2004 Award for Best Health-Focused Web Site from the prestigious Aesculapius Foundation. Smith appreciated Intertwine's insight and decade-long record of success with projects for large member organizations.
With her strategy firmly in place, the American Thyroid Association asked Intertwine Systems to provide a solution that would work as reliably as its staff - reducing the burden of constant member support, providing better services to its members and freeing the Association to focus on its public service goals.
Intertwine recommended its MembaMe software, a web-based system that would allow the ATA to:
In addition, each member would get her own personalized member page, from which she could manage her account, connect with other members, access archived journals and, best of all, consider herself an engaged and valued member of the Association.
MembaMe would be a hosted application, meaning the Association needed to buy no additional computer equipment, never had to worry about system backups or upgrades, and could securely administer the entire system from any computer with a web browser. Since MembaMe would be a semi-custom system, it would meet the ATA's needs while remaining flexible and affordable.
As lead developer on the new member services project, Intertwine worked closely with ATA and their iMis software vendor, AEC. A special challenge for the project would be to integrate the web-based MembaMe system with the Microsoft Windows-based iMis software. This integration would allow members to make changes directly to their member records, further reducing ATA's member support workload.
Intertwine and AEC worked together to create a software bridge between the two systems, which allowed members to access both systems seamlessly.
Intertwine also helped guide the ATA through the process of obtaining a credit card processor and merchant account, a key requirement for accepting online payments. Finally, Intertwine helped the ATA contact each of its members with a personalized email that helped the members learn about the new services and how to log in to the system.
After an extensive testing regimen and training of the ATA staff, it was time to raise the curtain on ATA's ambitious new member support system.
After launch, Smith noticed several things at once: the phones, which had been a constant presence, were less active. Suddenly there were more hours available to move towards the Association's goals, and even better, there were emails from far and wide with congratulations on the organization's new responsiveness.
Her strategy vindicated, Bobbi Smith has moved the Thyroid Association from struggle to strength, with significant growth both in membership and financial power since her tenure be-gan. In fact, an unprecedented number of the ATA's members have gone online to pay their dues, update contact information and simply en-joy the new wealth of information available on their personalized home pages.
Intertwine Systems continues to be a strong technology partner for the ATA, with several web projects delivered or under development. And the best part of the American Thyroid Association's ongoing relationship with Intertwine Systems? It's an association that works.
